Pakistan summoned on Thursday Bangladeshi envoy over the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami, who was hanged on Tuesday over “war crimes during the 1971 separation movement”.

Moulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, was hanged over “war crimes during the 1971 separation movement”.(Reuters file photo)

Pakistan summoned on Thursday Bangladeshi envoy over the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami, who was hanged on Tuesday over “war crimes during the 1971 separation movement”.

Nizami was sent to gallows after the Bangladesh Supreme Court rejected his plea to review the death penalty. Jamaat opposed the separation movement.

“The Acting High Commissioner of Bangladesh was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today and a strong protest was lodged at the unfortunate hanging of Motiur Rahman Nizami on the alleged crimes committed before December 1971 through a flawed judicial process,” a foreign ministry statement reads.

“The attempts by the Government of Bangladesh to malign Pakistan, despite our keen desire to develop brotherly relations with it, are regrettable,” the statement said.

Pakistan recalled to the envoy that the 1974 Tripartite Agreement was the cornerstone of relations between the two countries and that, as part of the Agreement, Bangladeshi government “decided not to proceed with the trials as an act of clemency”.

In an earlier statement the Foreign Ministry stated that Pakistan was following the reaction of the international community and human rights organisations to the “controversial trials in Bangladesh” related to events of 1971.

The Bangladesh Jamaat said last week that Nizami was innocent as he had “no links with war crimes” in 1971. The party also said “Nizami was deprived of justice”.

In Pakistan, Jammat-e-Islami staged rallies in major cities to condemn Niazmi’s execution.

Pakistani parliament also criticized the execution in a resolution on Wednesday.